Gotta' get goin'

Before I banter on with triumphant tales of life on the open road, I first must brief you on our short and productive tale of actually getting on the road.

If you've read any of my recent tales, you'll know that for the last couple of months Glenn and I have sleeping around a little, so to speak. Also known as 'couch surfing' and 'homelessness'. We tried to time the beginning of life on the road, so we could leave our home, (our very generous friend opened up her spare room for us when we arrived back from Australia) go live in our adoptive home, (house sit for another friend who was travelling) than out of there.

 Since this is not a perfect world, we didn't hit the road for five days after we had planned, or hoped. Not to worry. We stayed because Glenn had a lot of work and needed to finish up, so it was unofficially worth prolonging the trip for a week.

Many post-its and two thermoses later, we were borderline psychotically ready to leave. Not Seattle though. We were ready to make our first stop. (There were five before we hit 60 miles on the speed thingy)

Stop One: Goodbye to Uncle Brad, and all the zealous workers that were sporting many tools at the work site.

Stop Two: Meet Evan and sell him our beat up old truck. Stop Two again: Say goodbye to Evan than load up our already loaded car with cans of paint and brushes.

 Stop Three: Go to REI and return some things. Known as pants and solar radio.

Stop Four: Drive to Glenn's sisters place, unload all our crap that we had been living with in our working life, not the paint and brushes, than reload the car with tubs and various other bags containing our camping gear. This did not go as uniform as I had imagined. In my mind it was going to be like a game of Tetras. One tub up, one over, one moved perfectly up there. No, a car is shaped much different than the perfect rectangle I had envisioned.

Stop Five: Drive to Redondo Beach?? Paint the entire second floor of a dilapidated whole of shit building, (the bottom floor doubled as bakery and home for many large rat traps) with fish, sea grass and other oceanic like scenery. I think we did a good job considering I had a bad attitude about having to do it for the first hour. Within ten minutes after completion, the rain came. It didn't stop.

That was kind of a slap in the face since we leaving Seattle. We headed south, than west along I-84 towards Hood River, Oregon. Glenn had to constantly remind me that yes, we were still in the Pacific Northwest, where, yes, it does tend to have the same absurd climate as Seattle. If I still was having trouble fathoming it, than I could look across the Columbia River to see Washington.

So there you go. Off we went. Off we are. Ready for whatever is ready for us.

Note to Reader: Our car is now our vessel and box filled with our physical necessities. Our tent is now our bedroom under the stars. We are forming, gradually for me, a balance with nature. It's obviously happy for me to be around it, so the least I can do is to be happy being around it.

Another Note to Reader: Glenn has three times the amount of baggage as I do. Therefore we have formed an imaginary line down the middle of the backseat; one side for me, one side for Glenn. Soon I will be rationing our food supply just so we can start to see out the back window.